1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting element which is used in organic electroluminescent display devices, a light emitting device comprising the light emitting element, and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
An organic electroluminescent (EL) display device has properties such as thin type, wide viewing angle, low power consumption and excellent moving picture display and has been expected to be an image display device of the next generation. An organic electroluminescent element (hereinafter, referred to as “light emitting element”) which is used for the organic EL display device, has at least one light emitting layer between two electrodes such that the light emitting layer emits the light by applying the voltage between the electrodes and can display an image.
Until now, a light emitting element with a bottom emission structure emitting light from the bottom part has been produced by laminating a transparent electrode as an anode such as ITO (Indium Tin Oxide), a charge transport layer, a light emitting layer comprising organic compounds, and a cathode comprising metal such as Al sequentially onto a glass substrate.
Recently, a light emitting element with a top emission structure emitting light from the upper part has become more commonly used. The top emission structure utilizes metal having high work function for the anode. Unlike the light emitting element with the bottom emission structure of which the area of the light emitting part is limited depending on the pixel circuit, the light emitting element with top emission structure has advantage in widening the area of the light emitting part. As for the light emitting element with the top emission structure, a semi-transparent electrode such as LiF/Al/Ag (Applied Physics Letters, United States, 2001, vol. 78, pp. 544-546, hereinafter referred to as ‘Non-patent literature 1’), Ca/Mg (Applied Physics Letters, United States, 2003, vol. 82, pp 466-468, hereinafter referred to as ‘Non-patent literature 2’) or LiF/MgAg is used for the cathode. The contents of these publications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. When the emitted light from the light emitting layer enters the other layer with an incident angle larger than a certain value in this light emitting device, the light is totally reflected on the interface between the light emitting layer and the other layer thickness. For this reason, it cannot be avoided that only a part of the emitted light is used. Recently, it has been proposed the light emitting device which is provided with a capping layer having a high refractive index, on the outside of the semi-transparent electrode having a low refractive index so as to improve the light extraction efficiency (Non-patent literature 1, 2).
Non-patent literature 2 discloses the effect of the capping layer in the light emitting element with a top emission structure. According to the Non-patent literature 2, a light emitting element using Ir(ppy)3 (fac-tris-(2-phenylpyridinato)indium) as a light emitting material, showed 38 cd/A of current efficiency when the light emitting element was not provided with a capping layer, while the light emitting element provided with a capping layer made of ZnSe (layer thickness 60 nm), showed 64 cd/A of current efficiency which is about 1.7 times higher.
Furthermore, the Non-patent literature 2 discloses that the maximum point of transmittance of the semi-transparent electrode and capping layer is not necessarily coincident with the maximum point of light extraction efficiency of the semi-transparent electrode and capping layer, thus it is indicated that the maximum point of light extraction efficiency is determined by an interference effect.
It has been proposed that a metal mask with a high accuracy is used for forming a capping layer, however the metal mask has a problem of being inferior in alignment accuracy due to the deformation by heat. That is, ZnSe used in the Non-patent literature 2 has a high melting point as 1100° C. or more, so it is difficult to be deposited on the accurate position with the mask having a high accuracy. Most of inorganic compounds are not suitable when using the mask having a high accuracy and also may inflict damage on the light emitting element itself, due to the high deposition temperature. Moreover, since forming an inorganic layer by the sputter method may inflict damage on the light emitting element, the inorganic compounds are difficult to be applied for a capping layer.
According to the Non-patent literature 1, Tris-(8-hydroxyquinolinato)aluminum (Alq3) is used as a capping layer for adjusting the refractive index. Alq3 is known for an organic EL material showing green light emitting and weakly absorbs light having a wavelength of about 450 nm which is the wavelength of general blue light used for a general blue light emitting element, as shown in FIG. 8. For this reason, both color purity and light extraction efficiency decrease in the blue light emitting element. FIG. 8 is a graph showing the relation of refractive index and extinction coefficient to wavelength in the capping layer using Alq3. In FIG. 8, the solid line depicts refractive index and the broken line depicts extinction coefficient.